Oh yes, taken from MSN's car expert Tom Evans:
1. Ford Racing Puma
The Puma itself was a great car – a sporty, sharp drive with great looks to match, and a 1.7 litre economical engine that took it to 60 in under nine seconds. The much awaited racing version did not live up to expectations however: An extra £8,000 seemed a lot just to take the power from 125 to 155hp - the car bombed and possibly hastened the premature demise of the Puma line itself, which was a shame.
2. Jaguar XJ220
The idea of this car was born right at the peak of the late 1980s classic car prices boom and speculators queued up to give Jaguar a deposit cheque to reserve a car - priced at a whopping £400,000 each; the promise of four-wheel-drive and V12 prompted many to think they could make a quick buck. By the time the car actually arrived it came with rear-wheel-drive and a V6 engine nicked from the Metro 6R4 rally car. It was still good for 217mph and 550 hp, but a horrendous recession and sky-high interest rates had also arrived and the classic car market collapsed, leaving many speculators refusing to take the cars, using the changed spec as an excuse. A number ended up in court with Jaguar, and many of the cars remained unsold for years afterwards.
A grade 1 disaster and an experience that has still not yet been forgotten in the industry.
3. VW Porsche 914/6
This was a nice idea from 1969 in theory – a neat, small Porsche with a Volkswagen engine. Unfortunately the pricing was all over the shop and the much more desirable and more powerful 911 cost just £300 more. Everyone bought the 911 and the 914/916 bombed. However, their resultant rarity means they’re worth more today than you might think…
4. Rover 416 & 45
When the Rover 400 came out it wasn’t too bad, based as it was on the Honda Civic of 1993. However it was a testament to what a calamity MG Rover (MGR) became that the company was still making more or less the very same car a full 12 years later, and at least six years after it should have been replaced. Not bad in 1994, but totally outclassed ten years later – all of which could have been forgiven if pricing had been keen. However, it was in fact decidedly unkeen, the company still labouring under the fatal delusion that Rover was a premium brand. As a result a loaded-up Rover 45 cost about £17,000 at the end.
Noone ever paid it of course, but even heavily discounted it wasn’t a great buy, made worse by horrendous depreciation; for the same money people could get an Audi or a BMW 1-Series – which is exactly what they did.
5. Caterham R500 Evolution
This car’s problem was that it was based on the Caterham Seven, an excellent car by any standards even with the standard engine. The R500 however featured more engine than most could safely handle and cost twice as much.
6. Rover City Rover
Another nail in the MGR coffin, and rather a cynical one at that. Unable to afford the vast sums needed to replace the Metro (Sorry, “ Rover 100”), the company did a deal with Tata Motors. It worked like this: Rover bought this Indian-built car - called the Indica in its home market - for around £2,500, and then flogged it for more than twice as much through its dealer network which was crying out for a small car to sell to boost revenues. However, they wouldn’t have cried out for this, as it was rubbish. It might have been vaguely pardonable if it was cheap, but again the Rover premium-price delusion came into play and the car made no impact whatsoever, utterly outclassed by the competition.
Even after MGR had died its misery wasn’t over, with 1,200 of the things left stranded at Bristol docks, unloved and ignored by everyone – coupled with revelations that all needed to be recalled anyway to fix a problem with its wheels.
7. Isuzu Piazza
This car was four years old before it reached the UK. Even if launched when it should have been it might have struggled – as it was this Japanese sports car struggled to get anywhere. Even a dramatic price cut within months of launch couldn’t boost sales.
8. MG X-Power SV
Oh dear, another car, another MGR disaster. While some commentators suggested that the company spend its limited supplies of time and money in finding a new partner and developing a new mid-sized car to replace the ancient 25/45 (see above), the company thought otherwise and embarked on a gloriously misconceived scheme to buy an Italian sports car company called Qvale and its Mangusta model, which they then relaunched as the MG X-Power SV, married to a 4.6 litre V8 Ford engine. William Morris would turn in his grave: this was not what Morris Garages are supposed to be about: An Italian car with Italian looks armed with an American muscle-car engine. All of which might have been OK if that crucial MG ingredient of affordability was included. No surprises for guessing that it wasn’t and yes, of course, they could sell these things for more than a Porsche 911. They couldn’t of course and yet more millions went up in smoke. Rowan Atkinson was one of the car’s few fans, though he didn’t have to actually pay for one.
9. Rolls Royce Camargue
Rolls-Royce deserve points for trying on this one – based on the Silver Shadow saloon this coupe was designed by Sergio Pininfarina and was briefly the top of the R-R range, and introduced various innovations, notably split-level air conditioning which allowed the lower half of the interior to be a different temperature from the higher. Why on earth you would want this is beyond me, and was perhaps beyond the imagination of would-be buyers, who were reluctant to shell out for this car. And shell out you would, since the Camargue cost a cool £80,000 in 1986 at the end of its life – and 80k was serious money back then.
10. Vauxhall Tigra Diesel
The Tigra isn't a bad car, but its pricing is problematic - the 1.3CDTi Sport has a small engine and doesn't go very fast - yet will set you back over £15,000. This might be OK if it was a sports car, but it's really a Corsa to both sit in and drive.
Taken from http://cars.msn.co.uk/carnews/ttwors...05/Default.asp
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Originally Posted by Forever92
